Hannibal Eater of Souls
by Soul Eater 42
Summary: The story of hannibal being tracked down by Will Graham. R&R.
1. Default Chapter

P R O L O G U E  
  
12 March, 1975 Home of James Hubbard  
  
He never went in to his shed except to check on the fuse box or get more ammo for his rifle or crossbow. All of the tools that he had where strewn across the benches that lined the walls. They hadn't been used since the house had been built ten years ago. After that they sat for no better purpose than to collect dust.  
He was only wearing a pair of jeans under his robe, and being the middle of March, the night was particularly cold. For no reason, it seamed, the electricity to his entire house had turned off, and hoping it was only a loose fuse, he came out to check on it.  
The fuse box was at the back of his shed, to the right of the big pegboard that the various tools should hang from. He walked up to the metal box and saw that the steel door hung ajar, opening it all of the way, his flashlight illuminated the small black switches that had all been flipped to off. Checking the labels again he saw that they had indeed been turned off. It must have been Sam, he thought. Sam was Mr. Hubbard's gardener who was the only person to enter the shed on a regular basis. He disliked Sam, who returned the favor, but kept him on since he worked cheap and did a decent job. Sam had most likely come in here and shut down the electricity to the house as a prank.  
There was a quiet rustle, like a gentle zephyr blowing by a bush behind him.  
Turning his head to view the rest of the small shed he saw a shadow beside the bench, no more than three feet away. He turned his light onto the figure and illuminated a man, slim and in his early forties. James Hubbard stood for a moment in confusion as to who this man was, but he was not standing for long, as the strange man pulled out a heavy wrench from the cluttered counter top and swung it around to hit Mr. Hubbard in the neck. His spinal cord snapped as the large piece of steel knocked him unconsciously to the floor.  
  
Not wanting to rush things, the intruder laid Mr. Hubbard down on the cold concrete floor, unfolded his robe off of his left side and set to work. He opened up the black bag that he had set bellow the work bench and removed a small knife. Using the freshly sharpened blade, he made a small incision across Mr. Hubbard's left side, just below the rib cage. Using a few more of the tools from his bag, the man spread the skin to reveal a large muscle, which he pushed aside to make visible the small dark red organ that was Mr. Hubbard's left kidney.  
Using a curved pair of scissors, the man cut the large veins that connected the kidneys to the circulatory system near the middle of Mr. Hubbard's back. The blood flow increased as the small organ was removed. Using a pair of electrified pliers, the man sealed off the blood coming from the artery. He placed the kidney into a plastic bag and sealed it into a small thermos filled with crushed ice.  
He pulled out a roll of thread used for sewing up wounds and a needle. Threading the needle he set to work at closing up the opening.  
When he had finished, he packed away the thermos and his various tools before looking back at Mr. Hubbard, who was now becoming semi- conscious though he would have no feeling below his neck.  
"Well, Mr. Hubbard, what shall I do with the rest of you?" Hubbard merely made a small gurgling sound before passing back into unconsciousness. The intruder looked up at the pegboard on the back wall of the shed. Hanging there were a few tools and other various items, but there was one thing that caught his interest, a quiver of arrows and a hatchet. 


	2. Chapter 1

C H A P T E R I  
  
13 March, 1975 Outside Greenock, Maryland  
  
Special Agent Will Graham pulled up next one of the police cars, which were parked randomly around the front of a large forest cabin. As he stepped out he took in his surroundings. He was standing next to his car in the middle of a dusty gravel path that led from the opening in the trees to the front of the two story cabin and work shed. Both the house and the shed were built with arch-style roofs and very large, open windows. Graham's eyes were snapped away from the house when a county police officer stepped up to him and said in a heavy West Virginian accent, "Are you the man from the FBI?"  
"Yes, Will Graham," he replied, quickly shaking the man's hand and revealing his identification, "Has the body been moved?"  
"No, the photographer should be finishing up now, so you can look around before we clean up."  
"Yes, thank you." Graham started to walk up the small slope towards the tool shed when the cop continued.  
"Excuse me, sir, I just have a question for you," He paused as Graham looked back on the young officer, "It's just, I've only hear people talking about this killer as a 'he', but how do you know it's a man?"  
Graham stood in silence for a moment, contemplating whether to say or not, "Female serial murderers have only been documented as killing one gender, usually other females. This murderer has killed two women and now four men." "Also his second victim was a twenty-four year old man who ran marathons and went to the gym every day. Most woman couldn't have fought him down to the ground."  
"Oh, yes sir,"  
  
Graham stepped up to the front porch of the cabin and looked around. The porch was hardwood and there were two wicker chairs with a table between them. To the right and left of the front door, which was centered in the wall, were two, single-pane windows that looked into a small living area and study. Graham continued past the house and walked past the group of three cops that were standing to the right of the shed.  
The wooden door sat open and Graham waited as the photographer walked out. The shed was back to being a fresh crime scene, the picture from the killer's mind.  
Graham walked around the door and saw 54 year old James Hubbard, hanging off of the wall of his own shed. He was naked except for a pair of shorts that looked to have been blue jeans, cut away above the knee. His arms were strung up by the wrists and secured onto heavy-duty steel hooks, and his ankles were strung onto the wall in a similar fashion. There were two iron pegs punctured through his thighs to stick out on the other side. Punctured through his shorts on his right thigh there was a short hunting arrow. The killer had also taken a hatchet and swung it around to cut deep into the right side of Mr. Hubbard's chest, about where his heart would be. Of course the heart may be missing, Graham thought, but that would be found out after the autopsy.  
Will looked to his left and right, examining the various tools and materials spread over the long wooden tables that stretched across each side of the shed. Behind each of the tool benches there were tall pegboards with hooks of various types and tools hanging off of them. Mr. Hubbard was also hanging from a tall pegboard, though the tools that had hung there were now scattered across the floor under his feet, along with broken and warped pieces of wood.  
  
Graham walked out from the cramped shed and into the sunlight of a Tuesday afternoon. The same curious cop that had first greeted Graham walked up to him and said, "So, is it him sir?"  
"Yes," replied Will looking down slightly. He turned his head as the sound of approaching cars hit his ears. Two black Lincoln Continentals came driving out from the forest path. They parked suddenly beside and behind Graham's car. From the passenger seat of the first vehicle came Jack Crawford, the head of the Behavioral Sciences Department at the FBI in Langley. He was only 48, but managed to look ten years older, he stayed sullen faced as he walked up to Will.  
"So, is this number six?" he asked, crossing his arms.  
"Yes, no one else would do this."  
  
14 March, 1975 FBI Headquarters  
  
Will Graham leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his tired eyes and then looked back onto his desk. The descriptions and photos from each of the crime scenes, as well as background information on each of the victims sat strewn out across his desk. He kept very little in his cramped office, only his desk, a chair, and a three drawer filing cabinet. The top two drawers were full, he had devoted the middle one to the Chesapeake Ripper case, but all of its contents were lying on his desk. The top drawer sat devoted to the first Serial Killer that he had had to track down, Garret Hobbs. Graham had found Hobbs in his apartment. When Will had seen what Hobbs was doing to his own daughter, he managed to shoot him.  
After the police had come and the children of Garret Hobbs that were still alive had been taken away to a youth hospital, Will became ultimately depressed by the death of the pediofile by his hand, and eventually he was ordered by Jack Crawford to spend some time in the Mental Hospital for recovery. After three months of therapy and isolation from the rest of the world, Will Graham left the Hospital and managed to return to his job.  
After another eight months of investigating different murders and tracking down the perpetrators, Will Graham was called in to investigate a particularly morbid crime. A woman had been found seated on a bench in Arlington Cemetery in Washington DC on 14 December. When the medics had taken her to the morgue and the autopsy was done, it was apparent that this woman had died from strangulation, but had then been operated on by a seasoned medical professional who removed three of her ribs on her right side before sewing up the wound.  
The fingerprints that they took off of the victim where cross- examined with those of missing persons. A match came up, Samantha Cyril, 26, first reported missing on 11 December.  
After Miss Cyril had been found, there seemed to be another murder of this type almost every ten to fifteen days. On 23 December, 24 year old, Edward Murray was found under the skeletal remains of a dinosaur in the Museum of Natural History. His stomach had been removed and the killer hadn't bothered to sew the victim's chest back up and had smeared some of his blood over the jaw of the skeleton, giving the scene the look of a dinosaur attack. The third victim, 22 year old Darcy Taylor was found floating in the Chesapeake Bay, The muscle and skin had been removed from her lower back.  
This was when the National Tattler invented the name "The Chesapeake Ripper".  
On 30 January, 27 year old Mathew Collins was found with his throat slit, sitting in the back seat of his car, which was parked ot the side of his house. The frontal portion of the right lobe of his brain had been removed. 38 year old, Cal Duncan was found on 16 February in the back of his pickup truck. His liver was missing.  
Now the Chesapeake Ripper had killed James Hubbard, removed his kidney, and hung him from his own wall with his own equipment stabbed into him in various places.  
  
Will looked up at the wall in front of him, a clock sat there ticking with the time reading 7:24am. He hadn't slept very well the night before and had left for work by six a.m. Now he was wishing that he was back at home, in bed with his wife Molly, with her son, his step-son, sleeping in the next room. 


	3. Chapter 2

C H A P T E R II  
  
14 March, 1975 Office of Jack Crawford, Head of Behavioral Sciences  
  
"So, what was it you asked me in here for, Jack?" asked Will after he sat down on the shallow leather chair across from Jack Crawford. Jack's office, along with the rest of the Behavioral Sciences department, was underground, so the cinderblock walls and filing cabinets where all lit by the same low-energy use lights that they use for morgues. On the wall behind Jack's desk there was a large bulletin board that had across it all of the photos from the now six murders. Starting from the top left was the 26 year old woman, Samantha Cyril, followed by the janitor from the Museum of Natural History, the University student, the young millionaire, and the census taker, finally ending up with the new pictures of the mangled body of James Hubbard, the hunter who became the prey.  
"I thought that I should tell you one of the interesting details about Mr. Hubbard's autopsy."  
"What?"  
  
"Well you see, one of the arrows that was stuck into his thigh cut across an old hunting wound. According to his medical history, he was submitted into the Maryland-Misericordia Hospital in 1970. He had an arrow in his leg. He said that he had been bow hunting alone, and he hadn't been wearing his orange vest and a fellow hunter had shot him. He had been mistaken for a deer."  
"So what is so strange, the killer probably saw that he had some stitches and decided to put the arrow there."  
"But, Will, you're forgetting, Hubbard was wearing a pair of shorts and the arrow was punctured through them."  
"So you think that the killer was familiar with his medical information?"  
"That or maybe he saw him in the hospital that day and remembered his face the night he killed him."  
"Hundreds of people could have seen him with that arrow in his leg, it would be impossible to find anyone from that day."  
"Actually it might not be as hard as you think. You see the doctor that treated Hubbard is Dr. Lecter."  
"You're kidding!"  
"No, I thought you may want to go and pay Dr. Lecter a visit, you probably haven't seen him in a while."  
"Not since Hobbs was killed."  
"I also thought that it would help the investigation a lot if you asked him to do a profile for us."  
"Didn't bloom give you one?"  
"Yes, but that was from before we found Matthew Collins, and, I have to say, Bloom is not as talented a psychiatrist as Dr. Lecter."  
"No, nobody is."  
  
+ + + + +  
  
The house had two floors. At the front there was a small room which acted as the entry way. There where few windows along the first floor, but a long line of them spilled across the walls of the second story. He took a bundle of papers from the front seat and shut the car door. He walked up to the front door and opened it. He stood in a small room with coat hangers, a wooden bench, and another door. Will also saw to the left of the door a small indent into the wall from which a string hung out. Pulling the string, Will heard the clanging of a bell somewhere above him. It was after six o'clock, so he expected the doctor to be home. The door was quickly opened by a lean man who looked to be in his early forties. He had his short black hair tied neatly back into a ponytail. Even to those people who had never met Dr. Lecter before could tell, just by having him look at them that no amount of reading or university classes could ever make someone more intelligent or more refined than him.  
"Special Agent Graham, how nice to see you again."  
"I'm sorry to bother you at this time, but your secretary said that you where booked all day."  
"It's no trouble, please; come in." he stepped back from the door frame to let Will pass, "Let me take your coat."  
"Dr. Lecter," asked Will as he passed his coat to the doctor, "do you read any newspapers or magazines on a regular basis?"  
"Only the Baltimore Times, why do you ask?"  
"I wanted to know how much you may have learned about the murders which have been going on."  
"Murders? I would expect that they must be more than that if your department is on the case."  
"Yes there have been six deaths that are in very close relation to each other. The tabloid magazines are putting them together themselves and filling in the gaps with their own fabrications. We have managed to keep a few things about the deaths secret though."  
"Well, it sounds to me like your leading up to the same question you asked me four years ago," He smiled slightly before continuing, "why don't we step into my study, and we'll talk It over," he ushered Graham through the double doors to the left of the front entrance. Graham walked through into the doctor's study. The walls were lined with shelves, all of which where filled with various medical books and trinkets from Europe and Asia. There were a number of moths and butterflies held into a picture frame with labels under each of them telling their origin, eating habits and scientific names. Graham also spotted a number of decorative sets of bows and arrows hanging off of the sides of the cupboards.  
Dr. Lecter moved around the large oak desk in the center of the room and sat down on the large swivel chair, "So, Will, what is it that links these deaths together?"  
"All of the victims have had part of or all of an organ removed, and none of the missing parts have been recovered."  
"So what do you think is happening to those pieces?"  
"Most serial killers are known to take souvenirs from their victim's, some of them just store them in a freezer, and others use them to complete their fantasies."  
"So what is his fantasy? Or is that what you want me to find out?"  
"I'm afraid that I have no idea yet as to what drives this one, but that is the reason I'm here. You're the best forensic psychiatrist I know, so I would like to think you can help a great deal with the investigation."  
"Well, there is no way that I could turn down the chance to help an FBI investigation again. The last time tested my psychiatry knowledge more than I thought possible. Looks like where partners again." He smiled again.  
"I have a copy of the case file for you. It has all of the crime scene photos and lab reports." Graham took the bundle of papers from under his arm and passed them across the desk to Dr. Lecter.  
"Wonderful, I will be looking over this tonight and in the morning I will clear some time on my schedule, and we can begin making our profile."  
"Thank you, Dr. Lecter, but there is one more reason why I'm here."  
"Oh, please continue."  
"Well you see, Dr. Lecter, the newest victim is James Hubbard, he is a retired hunter who five years ago was submitted into hospital by you."  
"Me? Well I suppose it is possible, I worked in the Emergency Room for a few years before getting into psychiatry, what was he in for?"  
"He had an arrow wound to his right thigh that had occurred while hunting."  
"Oh, yes the arrow, actually if I remember correctly, he was a very rude man, Will, and I had to give him a shot of Morphine just to keep him quiet. But at the end of the operation he was kind enough to give me the arrow, though I do think that was the Morphine talking. Since he had come in so early he left the Hospital by the late afternoon."  
"Do you still have the arrow?"  
"Yes, it is in the cabinet behind you, bottom shelf." Will got up and turned around to look down at the lower shelves of the cabinet. Sitting next to a number of antiques was the arrow. It had a number of spars on the edges of the point and a few inches up the shaft to get a firm hold into the animal that was shot.  
"It doesn't look like a normal hunting arrow."  
"No that was why it took longer to finish the operation," said Dr. Lecter as he walked around his desk to join Will by the cabinet, "with a normal hunting arrow you can carefully remove it without damaging any more flesh, but this one will grab a hold to the muscle. Even with the operating tools that I had some flesh was still torn. After it was removed I washed and sterilized it for Mr. Hubbard to keep, its standard with any type of wound that involves ballistics, but like I said he gave it to me as a thank you." Will turned away from the cabinet of knickknacks and faced Dr. Lecter. He stood quietly, his stature was that of a royal and the air about him made you treat him as such.  
"Dr. Lecter, do you remember anything about the people who may have saw Mr. Hubbard's wound?"  
"You have to remember, Will, that was the emergency room, I must have done at least twenty different operations and seen at least triple that number in patients, but I can tell you that the operation would have been done with no more than four or five others being able to see."  
"Well, thank you, Dr. Lecter, I'll come by around nine o'clock tomorrow."  
"That will be fine." 


	4. Chapter 3

C H A P T E R III  
  
15 March, 1975 Dr. Lecter's office  
  
"Will, sit down, please," said Dr. Lecter, motioning for Will to sit in the large swivel chair across from him. Dr. Lecter sat behind another large desk, in front of a window opening from the third floor of a small office building in Baltimore. To his left there was a day lounger and a few rows of book shelves and side tables. Various medical and fiction books lay open across the tables.  
"So," began Lecter, "I read through the case file last night and this morning I wrote up a quick outline for the profile, and I must say; this one is nothing like Hobbs, he is more of a Jack the Ripper."  
"Well, like I told you last night, the papers have dubbed him the Chesapeake Ripper, so Jack isn't all that far."  
"No, I suppose it isn't. So Will, what are your impressions?"  
"Well, from the precision of the wounds and stitches, I would say that he must have some type of medical knowledge, and not the type you get from reading a few books either, he would have to have gone to a university."  
"Yes, and what else?"  
"He would have needed some type of motivation, such as being fired or maybe even divorced."  
"Good, so I suppose that you'll be looking for mortuary workers, undertakers, doctors, and so on?"  
"Those are our main suspects, but some of the other agents believe that even a nurse or medical aid could be doing this."  
"I don't believe so, these stitches are from years of experience, there is only very little thread showing and only a few stitches where used."  
"Okay, so it would have to be one of the more experienced professionals, what else can you tell me?"  
"Well, there was one interesting thing about the newest victim, James Hubbard, though it may just be a coincidence, but I have seen an image much like the one of Mr. Hubbard on the wall."  
"You mean the medieval medical drawing?"  
"Yes, you've seen it?"  
"Just in passing, I only remembered it just now."  
"Yes, Wound Man was a graphic drawing used in many early medical books, it depicts a man that has died in a battle, protruding from his various limbs are the weapons of the age, and one of them is an arrow in his right thigh," at this Lecter stood and walked over to the bookshelf, "I believe that there is a copy of that in here," he had pulled a large black volume from the top shelf, it had some gold writing along the spine, but Will couldn't read it.  
"Ah," he said, flipping to a page near the center, "here it is." The picture showed a middle aged man standing naked in the center of the page, like the doctor had said there was an arrow in his right thigh, as well as a mace embedded in his head, an ax in his shoulder and a sword punched through his abdomen.  
"It looks as though more than death came to him in battle."  
"Yes," agreed the doctor with a small chuckle as he turned the book back to face him, "nobody ever said that the doctors of that age had to have a good medical knowledge. Some methods invented in that time didn't carry on long, such as the flower pedals in the pocket to ward off the evil demons that caused the plague. They may have been ill educated, but the people realized all too late that the posies had no effect, positive or not."  
"Yes, I know the poem."  
"Probably not the original version, it was distorted over the years into a child's song."  
"Yes, however doctor, I believe we're getting off topic. What else can you tell me about our historian?"  
"Well, in light of the 'Wound Man' drawing, I would say that he is a highly educated person, they don't usually teach that sort of history, except for in the top classes, and even then the student would have to have looked it up himself."  
"All right," said Will, rising from his seat, "if that is it, doctor Lecter, I should be getting back to check up on some of the things you've mentioned."  
"Very Well, I'll call you if I think of anything."  
"Why don't I give you my home number, I'm not always at the office."  
  
After Will Graham left, Dr. Lecter walked out from his office and over to his secretary's desk. She was shuffling through the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet, her back to the doctor.  
"Denise," he said, grabbing her attention immediately.  
"Yes, Dr. Lecter?" she had swiveled in her chair to face him.  
"My meeting finished early, so if my nine-thirty is outside, could you ask him to come in."  
"Yes. Doctor." She stood and walked around her desk to the door across from the one leading to Dr. Lecter's office and stuck her head through. She said something that was muffled by the wall, but soon enough a tall man in a brown, long sleeve shirt and black pants walked past her towards the doctor.  
"Mr. Raspail, nice to see you again." Said Lecter, motioning for the man to come in to his office, "you're lucky today as since my morning meeting was shorter than expected, you will have more than an hour."  
"Wonderful," replied Raspail quickly. His eyes darted quickly from one shelf to the next on the bookshelves along the wall.  
"Well, sit down, please."  
"The couch or the chair?" asked Raspail, again in the same quick and uneasy voice.  
"Whichever you would prefer," said Lecter, picking up a pad of paper and a pen from his desk. Raspail sat with his knees touching, his hands fumbled uneasily with each other and his eyes continued to dart around the room.  
"Is there something the matter?" asked the doctor, now seated in the chair previously occupied by Will Graham.  
"I can tell you anything, right? And you can't tell anyone?" he was stuttering a little now.  
"No, my license would be revoked," this was a lie, but it seemed to satisfy his jumpy patient.  
"Well, you see, it's Jame, my ex-boyfriend. He's been hanging around in front of my house, waiting for me to come home, he keeps asking me questions about Klaus, or at least he did keep asking me questions, until recently."  
"Klaus, he is your current partner?" Lecter sat with a stiff look on his face, he had never thought highly of homosexuals.  
"Yes or at least he was."  
"What do you mean?"  
"I came home one day and Klaus wasn't there, he usually is, but he wasn't, and I hadn't seen him yesterday either. Jame was standing in the kitchen; he was nude, except for an apron. He said that he had made the apron last night, and that because of the fabric that he chose, I should like him now."  
"What was the fabric?"  
"It was," he stopped and looked off to his right, a sick and saddened look on his face, "It was, Klaus."  
"You mean Jame had killed Klaus?"  
"Yes, and he had made the apron from his skin."  
"What did he do with the body?" Dr. Lecter was inquiring more than most people would, but he had his own reasons.  
"Apparently he had charmed Klaus in to going up to my cabin in the woods, which I had given Klaus a key to. Then he had killed him. The body is probably buried up there." 


	5. Chapter 4

C H A P T E R IV  
  
17 March, 1975 1:34am Gas Station outside Washington DC  
  
He had parked the truck at the side of the gas station, beside the air pump and in the shadows. He had been waiting for two hours and hadn't moved an inch. He stood right at the edge of the light from the large glass windows of the convenience store. He knew that anyone who happened to go into or out of the store would have to bump in to him to realize he was there.  
Just inside the window was the bored cashier. The seventeen year old had been there for longer than the man in the shadows had, and hadn't had to help a costomer. He lazed back in the swivel chair and flipped through the Playboy he had taken from the shelf.  
Though the counter was quite high, the man from the shadows knew what the teen was doing while he stared at his favorite page of the dirty magazine.  
The man in the shadows turned his head for the first time when he heard the sound of a green truck pulling up on the other side of the small building, into the staff parking lot. A few seconds later a short man with a grumpy expression on his face, that looked to have been there for years, walked around the corner into the light. He didn't look into the large glass windo to see what the kid was doing, but instead came to the end of the building, no more than five feet from the shadow and opened the glass door. The grumpy man walked along the rows of junk food and magazines to the kid who had now placed his magazine back on to the shelf and sat in his chair with a semi-worried look on his face.  
The two gas station workers said a few words to each other before the kid stood up and left the small store. He had grabbed a jacket from under the counter and wrapped it around himself. He stood for a second just outside of the door before turning back and walking up to the small man now behind the counter. Two minutes later he left with a new copy of Playboy under his arm.  
The kid walked into the shadows and steped right past the dark figure still lurking beside the corner.  
The man from the corner turned around and followed the kid past his own truck to a beaten up little car at the edge of the road. After the kid had opened the driver's seat door and had begun to step inside he stopped at the words of the man behind him and turned.  
"Good evening." Said the man. The kid just stood for a second before answering.  
"Where did you come from?"  
"Just around the corner, I have been waiting for you."  
"Why?" his voice broke slightly.  
"Well, I couldn't just come into the store there and let myself be seen on the security camera." His voice was getting icy. The kid just stood there. The man smiled at the teenager before taking out a damp cloth from behind his back and holding it against the kids face.  
The young man strugled for a moment and then went limp against his car.  
The Man from the shadows lifted the gas station clerk easily, and, avoiding the light of the filling station, carried the kid to the blue pick- up truck parked at the side of the small building. He lay the kid down on the passenger seat and walked around to the driver's side.  
The truck pulled out of the corner of the gas station in reverse before leaving at a gentle pace from the premisis.  
  
The truck parked at the side of the highway, only a mile away from the Maryland-West Virginia state-line. From the driver's side, a dark figure stepped out and walked around to the back of the vehicle. The man opened the tail-gait and slid a wooden box, about five feet long, three feet wide and three feet deep. He lifted the empty crate down to the ground and slid it around to the passenger's side of the truck. He opened the lid of the box as well as the door on the pick-up. The unconcious figure of the teenage gas station clerk sat hunched over on the front seat. The man lifted the kid out of the truck and down to the wooden box. With the teenager laying neatly in the crate, the man reached back into the truck and lifted out a black bag from behind the seat.  
The man opened up the bag to reveal various tools and bottles filled with clear liquids. Setting to work, the man turned the boy onto his side so as to get at his right arm. Pulling out a pair of long scissors, the man cut through the teen's shirt and removed the right sleeve. He replaced the scissors, and, using a freshly heated knife, made and insition in the skin of the well-defined bicep muscle. The cut went all the way from the shoulder to the elbow joint and two other cuts circled half way around the shoulder and the elbow. The gloved fingers of the man's left hand and a knife from the bag slowly caused the skin to let go of the underlying muscle. Once the skin was folded back, he took out another knife, it was only three inches long and had a very strait and sharp blade. Moving down towards the elbow he used the knife to cut away the tendons that held the bicep to the bone. At the shoulder, another tendon was cut, and the muscle was pulled away with ease.  
The heavy piece of flesh was lowered in to a bag which was then placed in a small cooler that sat between the two seats of the truck. The man then turned back to the boy laying in the box. He stared for a moment before grabbing another tool from his bag, a sharp rod with a curved point. Using this and another small knife, he punctured the right eye of his victim and held it in place as he edged the knife around the side of the teenager's eye, cutting away the muscle and optic nerve. The eye was soon loose and then placed into another small plastic bag, which in turn was set next to the first in the small cooler.  
The man then opened up the glove compartment and took out a deck of cards. He riffled through them and found the card he was looking for. He crumpled it up into a small ball and placed it into the empty socket that was starting to pool with blood.  
As a simpithetic jesture to the young man, he took from the black case, a small bottle of clear liquid and a sirynge. Filling the syringe with a few milligramms of the liquid, the man punctured the skin of the boy's neck and injected the liquid.  
He threw the now empyt bottle of cyanide into the black case, which he closed. He then closed the wooden box and got back in to his car.  
  
There was never anything good on the radio, but he decided to try. He scanned quickly past the stations of rock and roll to find his favorite. The enchanting Goldburg Variations, by Glenn Goulde. 


End file.
